Passage of the Music Modernization Act Has Lessons For Photographers

Cross-Posted from Variety [by Michael Huppe] What does the music industry have in common with the photography industry?Licensing and copyright and being fairly paid.The music industry recently had a major victory in the quest for musicians to be fairly paid in the form of the Music Modernization Act being signed into law.That victory was the result of many different parties – organizations of all kinds – working together for a single goal, and it worked.That effort can be replicated by photographers and visual artists and others, if we hang together.Michael Huppe, the president and CEO of SoundExchange wrote a piece about the power of working together in Variety.

Music Modernization Act Was Verse One, the Rest of the Song Is Yet to Be Written

Cross-Posted from Billboard.com [by The Open Music Initiative] Along these same lines, the passage of the Music Modernization Act has put into law the ability to set up a rights clearinghouse for music creators – an endeavor that photographers could also benefit from, as a proof-of-concept for managing licensing and rights payments. Billboard magazine has an Op-Ed by The Open Music Initiative, launched by the Berklee School of Music and the MIT Media Lab, who have already begun work on a non-profit, open-source project to manage all that information, potentially unlocking trillions of dollars of fees to go to creators.